


Sparks

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Series: Between the Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29854170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: The first time Luke meets Din, he winds up in a bar fight.To be fair, Luke starts it.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Series: Between the Stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196822
Comments: 30
Kudos: 266





	Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for Anon on Tumblr who wanted Luke and Din meeting pre-series. :D?

The first time Luke meets Din, he winds up in a bar fight.

To be fair, Luke starts it.

========

“Han,” Luke says over the rim of his glass. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

And Han, because he’s Han, lifts a finger off his own glass in a mocking little salute. “You’re about a year too late for that, Junior,” he says, tossing back the last of his drink. Waggles his eyebrows at Luke for some reason, and sets his glass down on their table. “Our guy’s here.”

And also, because this is still Han but a Han who is on a mission handed down to them from Rebel high command, he tips Luke a wink and crooked smile as he pushes to his feet.

Luke sighs and contemplates downing his drink in the same fashion as Han, but someone somewhere decided he, Luke Skywalker, was the responsible one out of the two of them. 

Left Chewie out of the equation altogether with the reasoning he was too inured to Han’s antics to bother putting up much of a protest when things inevitably went sideways on them.

Which...fair.

From what Luke’s seen Chewie just voices a long-suffering equivalent to _why are you like this???_ at Han before following headlong into whatever new madness he’s found.

Life-debts are just like that, Luke supposes. 

Turning in his seat, Luke watches Han saunter his way over to a Trandoshan at the bar and greets him with a hearty slap on the back and an arm thrown across his shoulders. Luke snorts at the edge of the wide grin he can see from this angle, bright teeth and fake all the way down – what Han calls his Business Smile – and pulls the Trandoshan close as he signals the bartender for a round of drinks.

With a sigh, Luke sets his glass down. 

He can see Chewie from the corner of his eye, watching over the two of them from a corner booth. 

It’s more reassuring than Luke expected it to be when they were given the mission to gather intel on Imperial activity near a smuggling hub.

Luke isn’t even supposed to be there, but Leia had sent him a message through Wedge. 

One that essentially said it had been so long since they’d seen one another in person, what with their respective duties, and did Luke know? 

There’s an absolute bastard of an Intelligence officer here with a highly dangerous mission he wants to send Han and Chewie on. Only an idiot would accept. Speaking of, would Luke mind coming by to keep their idiot from doing anything particularly stupid?

Paraphrased a bit, because Wedge.

Luke’s still not sure if talking his way into the mission along with Han and Chewie was what Leia had in mind, but either way, here he is.

Luke toys with his glass, tips it to eye the contents longingly.

He never imagined this side to things when he was on Tatooine dreaming of finding adventure and purpose among the stars, that’s for sure.

Luke looks up with half the bar when the door opens, mid-afternoon light spilling in. And like half the bar, his blood goes cold at the sight of the Mandalorian in the doorway.

Han’s told him about run-ins he’s had with one in particular, a man by the name of Fett. Described him in so much detail, Luke would know him anywhere. 

(Worried, Luke knows, about an idiot farm boy from a backwater desert world Han had fallen in with, the kind of ghosts Hand had nipping at his heels even now.)

Whoever this Mandalorian is, it’s not him, not Fett.

Might not even be a bounty hunter, but the timing is a little too convenient. Smacks of that bad feeling Luke’s had about this whole mission rearing its head.

Luke glances towards Chewie and stands up, dropping a few credits to cover their drinks and makes his way to the end of the bar the Mandalorian’s settled at. Opposite end from where Han and his Trandoshan buddy are deep in conversation, seemingly oblivious to everything around them.

By the time Luke sits down he’s all wide-eyed farm boy, amazed at the wider world away from Tatooine, and gosh, the Mandalorian’s armor sure is shiny.

He has to bite the inside of his cheek at the look the Mandalorian turns on him. It’s so much like Leia when she has to untangle the latest idiocy Luke and the others have gotten up to on base between missions when left unsupervised for too long.

Luke’s eyebrows go up when the Mandalorian just stares at him – or at least that’s what Luke assumes he’s doing, because helmet. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” Luke offers, still bumbling, fumbling farm boy with no self-awareness to speak of and a complete lack of tact. 

Dumb as hell, and it’s worked well for him for years now, got him enough money from back-room sabacc games in Mos Eisley to afford a nice little speeder for himself.

The Mandalorian tilts his head just so.

If Luke’s idiot farm boy had any sense at all, he’d excuse himself to slink off somewhere. But he doesn’t, never will, Luke and smiles guilelessly up at the Mandalorian. Big blue eyes and slight blush to his cheeks and oh, my, what a tall, dark, mysterious stranger the Mandalorian is.

After a long moment, the Mandalorian snorts. “I’m fine, thanks,” he says, and Luke’s grateful his idiot farm boy’s already blushing because it’s, well. 

It’s a really, really nice voice.

Luke ducks his head, bashful, shy, and tips his head to look back up at the Mandalorian through his eyelashes.

The Mandalorian’s watching him, leaning an elbow on the bar, and unless Luke is reading him entirely wrong, he seems amused.

“You’re sure?” Luke asks again, and even though he knows what the answer will be, that the Mandalorian isn’t buying his dumb farm boy act, he bats his eyes at him.

The Mandalorian shifts, and Luke gets the impression he’s about to say something, tell him to get lost maybe, to stop wasting his time, but - 

The doors open, letting mid-afternoon light spill in. 

This time, though, Luke’s sure everyone in the bar experiences that gut-punch of instinctive unease, fear, at the sight of Imperial stormtroopers in the open door.

Luke’s attention slides toward the Mandalorian at his soft sigh, tired, _done_. Despite the fact things are about to go violently sideways on them, Luke can’t help but laugh because he knows the feeling.

The Mandalorian looks at him, and there’s this moment just for them, incredulousness at the luck of it all, and then Luke snags a drink off the tray of a waitress frozen in place just behind them.

“Sorry,” he says, to the Mandalorian, the waitress, who knows who, and throws it at the feet of a Quarren who’s been glaring at him since he and Han walked in hours ago. 

Spoiling for a fight, and perhaps it’s a sign that Luke’s been hanging around Han too long because a bar fight seems the perfect distraction right now.

Luke catches a glimpse of Han’s startled face before the Quarren grabs the front of Luke’s shirt and a bar fight breaks out in earnest. Chewie roaring in the background before a stormtrooper goes flying past Luke, and anyway, the three of them knew it would end up like this, so.

========

Almost a decade later, Luke meets Din again on the bridge of an Imperial light cruiser.

He should feel a little offended, he thinks, of Din’s skeptical, “Are you a Jedi?” but given the way they met that first time it’s completely warranted.


End file.
